Hello friends, happy Tuesday! How are we already at the end of April? This year is a total blur! Today I’m wrapping all that was April in my life, let’s jump right into it!

Currently Reading:

Skeleton Crew by: Stephen King. I’ve gotten through a few short stories, but not too many. The Mist started off really good, then completely lost me; the next short story had no purpose and the following one was a bit better. We’ll see how this progresses.

I Capture the Castle by: Dodie Smith. My next classic read and I’m really enjoying this so far. I like the way it’s told from our main character who is basically giving us a play-by-play of what’s going on through journal entries, it’s been a lot of fun.

The Innocents by: Michael Crummey. This is my next Canada Reads book; I’m halfway through it and it’s been interesting. I don’t know how invested I am in this. It’s been fast-paced because events just keep happening and I’ve been reading it rather quickly, but I’m wondering if it’s going by too quickly for me to get. I’ll keep going to see if it gets better.

What I’ve Read:

28/100

Happy Hour by: Marlowe Granados. ⭐️⭐️ I’m sad that I didn’t like this; it’s on the longlist for Canada Reads, but it was very character driven with an aimless plot and I just didn’t care for what the characters were doing.

What Comes Echoing Back by: Leo McKay Jr. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Don’t get me wrong, this is a good book; heavy in subject matter, but I didn’t feel truly connected to the characters and the back and forth timeline didn’t work for me.

The Caged Queen by: Kristen Ciccarelli. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was such a fun read; I liked that it read as a standalone and it was just an enjoyable fantasy book.

Canterbury Tales by: Geoffrey Chaucer. ⭐️⭐️ I DID IT! I read through this whole thing! I’m proud of myself for that; I didn’t care for it, and my understanding never got to the point that I wanted, but I’m happy that I read it; no regrets.

Daughters of the Dawn by: Sasha & Sarena Nanua. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was the second novel in Ria & Rani’s story and I enjoyed this just as much, if not more than the first. It was so good!

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by: Jesse Q. Sutanto. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was almost a 5-star read for me. The ending was rushed and sometimes the characters sounded too similar, but this was still a really fun, cozy mystery to read.

Links to my my blog posts this past month:

Links to posts I enjoyed around the blogosphere:

Mackenzie @Colour Me Read posted a list of trans book recommendations.

The Orangutan Librarian discussed her defence to animation and why she doesn’t watch live action remakes.

Stephanie @The Abundant Word gave a great readers guide to beta readers, ARC and alpha readers.

Christina @The Bookshelf Corner talked about why libraries are important.

Pages Unbound, Briana talked about the age-old question ‘why are we still debating if audiobooks “count” as reading?’ and Krysta talked about why she no longer requests ARCs.

Lucy @Elsie LMC walked us through her bookstore visit.

April was slow, yet fast at the same time. Some days I couldn’t believe how fast time was flying, but at others I was like it’s still only the beginning of April? Time is weird, and I feel like I spent most of my time doing lots of things again this month. I thought it would slow down, and it did near the end of the month, but it was still jam-packed. I’m really looking to catching up on reading but work has ramped up, which has made life busy, and I’ve just been out going on adventures. I did manage to watch some movies this month, so I call that a success!

Highlights:

✨Continued to explore new restaurants

✨Went out for sushi – it’s been a hot minute and it was so good!

✨Planned a weekend trip to Niagara Falls

✨Went indoor roller skating, so much fun… before I fell flat on my back, ouch!

✨I decided to work in the office for the first time this year – I haven’t been since December. Wasn’t a bad experience; I did have to play musical chairs tho!

✨Bought new bookshelves and put them together; they are gorgeous and they hold more books than I own… a book lovers dream! 😊

✨Had a girl’s night with my best friends where we made friendship bracelets 💞

✨Celebrated Independent Bookstore Day by hitting 9 bookstores! 📚

✨Bought new books that I can’t wait to read!

✨Got a new work laptop, that was pretty exciting… the re-setting up, not so much! 😆

What I’ve watched:

The Simpsons; season 15 & 16. I fell a little bit behind on watching this, so I’m trying to play catch up. I enjoyed season 15. For an animated sitcom to go this long and not get completely boring is pretty good – I know I’m only halfway through the entire catalogue, but it surprises me how good the comedy can still be at times. I thought it got a little political near the end of the season, so it leaves me wondering where they’ll take the jokes next season. I mean, the whole Mr. Burns trying to buy every media news source was hilarious because it was so true. Speaking of Mr. Burns, I feel like we got him less in season 16. We did get to see Patty and Selma a little bit more, which was great. Also, now that I think about it, was Homer fired at the power plant? Because I don’t think we saw him at work the entire season. It’s funny, I can watch an episode every day and you can forget what happens in a season (or more) because things start to blend together. I have to say though, the end of 16 got kinda religious, to the point of fighting over which one was better. I get that it’s poking fun of society because it does exactly that, it was funny how they chose Bart and Homer to be the converters of a new religion, I thought that was pretty clever. Lastly, it was fun to see Bart and Lisa as teens for an episode. I look forward to continuing my watch.

Star Trek: Voyager; season 7. I finally made it to the end of this series; at times it almost felt like I wasn’t going to get there, but I did it! Another series to add to the canon of Star Trek! As for this last season, I felt it was a little underwhelming. There were cool moments throughout, like seeing Q again, and he has a son(!), B’Lanna and Tom getting married and having a daughter, watching the Doctor learn more about his human side, as well as Seven, too, and the whole will they, won’t they make it back home to Earth was definitely what kept me going, but I thought they would arrive home a lot sooner than they did. I did like that they brought Barclay back from the Next Generation. He’s a character that’s always been very flaky and hard to watch, but I think he really redeemed himself here and they gave him such a cool storyline. Because of course he would be the one to discover Voyager stuck out in space and of course no one would believe him, so watching him become a more confident person was fun to watch. The way this ended was not how I had envisioned it… because we don’t really see them arrive home – it’s a back and forth of the future and the present and how those two forces help them ultimately get back home; clever, but ehh I wasn’t 100% sold. All in all, not a bad series, but it really wasn’t my favourite and I’m ready to jump on the next series.

Angel; season 3. What a strange season; so I thought the past season was wishy-washy, this season I liked more, but what were they trying to do?! So they brought Darla back… and they brought her back pregnant with Angel’s kid, which I wasn’t totally on board for. But once the kid was born, she was gone, thankfully, and seeing Angel as a dad was extremely adorable and it was a lot of fun to watch… but then the whole plot about stealing the kid, and the kid being sent to another realm where he grew super fast and hated his father was just weird. Then we had the love affair/triangles, omg what was that all about?! So they made it out about Angel and Cordelia which I didn’t see coming… but then the guy she hooked up with at the end of season 2 shows up. Then we’ve got the Fred, Charles, Wesley triangle and I was like huh? To be fair, Fred and Charles are cute, but it’s not a couple I’m super excited to see. Then we have the way this ended on a cliff hanger, I mean, I know Angel isn’t going to die… it’s his show, but was Cordelia being lifted off into heaven her goodbye to the show? I like her character, but I could see that she was in it less and less as the season went on, so is she actually leaving? I guess I’ll have to watch season 4 to find out. This show is weirdly entertaining, and of all the plots I don’t really care for, I find myself staying for the characters. Speaking of, before I forget, I thought they were writing Wesley off, but he’s still around, too. I thought for sure when he went and betrayed Angel he was a goner. I look forward to where this wacky show goes for season 4.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; season 1. I’ve started my next phase of my Trekkie trek. This one takes place before the events of Captain Kirk’s crew take off. The enterprise is under Captain Pike and we have a young Spock (I mean Discovery also has a young Spock, but I like this one better). It’s taken me a little bit to get used to this new crew, but I like the way they banter with one another. Pike is hilarious and so is Spock. The missions have been interesting, too. I think my favourite episode has been the finale of this season so far because we got to see a young James Kirk (and we find out he has a brother… who knew?!) and you can see where the show is kinda coming together into the universe and I liked that. I can’t wait to see where the show goes from here.

The Shadowhunters; season 3, part 2. I can’t believe that I’m finally finished this show. I think that’s half the reason I never wanted to start it, I didn’t want it to end. So, like I predicted, Clary didn’t die and we meet the real Johnathan… gosh what a creep. I didn’t remember him being that obsessed with her in the books, but it could have been a thing. So that was interesting and it definitely took the last season to all sorts of new places. For the most part I enjoyed everything that happened, through all the ups and and downs, everyone had one last final plot and I really liked that because it felt really final. The way it ended though I thought was an interesting choice; choosing Clary to not remember the shadow world… but then she kinda does. It was a bittersweet ending and definitely for the fans. I think it was a good adaptation and I’m glad I finally watched it!

List of Movies:

• Disney Movies (look I watched some Disney films!)
  • Now You See Him, Now You Don’t – the sequel to the Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, I enjoyed this film, it was goofy but very entertaining.
  • Run, Cougar, Run – is this a documentary or a western? No one knows; this could have been entertaining if it hadn’t dragged on.

What I’m watching:

Boy Meets World; season 4. I’m still chugging away at this. I believe I have 6 more episodes so I doubt I’ll be finished in May… but we’ll see. The episodes have been a lot of fun to watch. I don’t remember Chick Like Me, but I can see why it was such an iconic episode, it was SO good. Interested to see where Long Walk to Pittsburgh goes because I don’t remember that episode either. I’m sure Topanga doesn’t leave, but we’ll see.

Bear and the Big Blue House; season 2. I’m making a slow progress on this show, but so far this has been going the same way as season one and I’m enjoying it. I can sing along to all the songs now and it’s just a good time and a great way to decompress from work.

The Good Doctor; season 7. So the tag-line for this new season is about facing new challenges and they’re chalking that up to Shaun becoming a dad… but I truly think his new challenge is working with people who are also on the spectrum because right now they’re showing he’s not very good at that. The dynamic between him and Charlie is so cringe to watch that it’s turning me off from the show. They did have a moment a few weeks ago, so now I’m curious to see if that’s going to actually go anywhere.

Law & Order: Toronto; season 1. I’m still really enjoying this. The storylines have been really well done and they always leave me guessing, which I like. I still like to guess who the killer is from the beginning to see if I’m right.

Grey’s Anatomy; season 20. Again, this hasn’t wowed me and it’s been hiatus the last few weeks so nothing new to really say about it.

Station 19; season 7. Like the above, it’s been on hiatus so not much to really say. I think I’m liking it a bit more than Grey’s, but not by much. The characters are just irritating me this season… I think we’re all tired. I actually just found out this is the last season of the show and I think that’s for the best at this point.

Star Trek: Discovery; season 5. This has come back for it’s fifth and final season and I’m sad about it, but happy it’s back. So far, it’s been a lot of fun. I feel like they’re using time travel to go back in time to relive past seasons for one last time, which is fine, but gets old fast. I hope the second half the season is less of that.

Instagram & YouTube videos from the month:

How was your April? Read, watch, do anything interesting? Let me know!